How to Install a WordPress Theme

Customization is one of the main reason why 33% of websites around the world use WordPress. With the huge collection of themes available, WordPress allows you to make an attractive and powerful website to stand out from the competitors.

Having a well-designed website is very important, as it’s a huge representation of your brand. So while it’s quite easy to change your WordPress theme often – it’s not recommended.

In this article, I will show you how to install a WordPress theme using three different methods and what things to consider before installing it.

Choosing the Perfect Theme

There are more than 7,000 themes available in the WordPress themes directory so how do you choose the perfect one?

Thankfully most of the themes are designed for specific niches. Depending on what your brand does, you can search for certain keywords and find the perfect fit for your site.

What is more, there are plenty of third-party sites and individuals who design custom themes. So if you can’t find the right one on WordPress, there are other options to explore.

Things to Consider before Installing a WordPress Theme

Keep in mind, that themes have more functions aside from the visual aspects of your site.

That being said, if you decide to install a new theme, it should make your website look beautiful and give better functionality to serve the best user experience.

Here are the things you should consider before installing a theme.

• Plugin functionality. Some themes come with a bundle of plugins to support the overall functionality, learn about them to prevent any collisions with your existing plugins
• Google Analytics reports. It is important to keep the tracking codes for analytic purposes, so don’t forget to put it on your newly installed theme too.
• Cross-browser functionality. You should always check the browser compatibility of the theme you want to use. Remember, it should be mobile-responsive out-of-the-box.
• Loading time. Don’t ruin your website by installing a slow theme that takes forever to load files.

Having checked all these things, now you are ready to install a new WordPress theme.

Installing a WordPress Theme

As previously mentioned, I would like to show you three methods to install a WordPress theme. I will start with the easiest one.

Exploring Admin Theme Search

This is the easiest method since you don’t even leave your WordPress dashboard to install a theme.

Unfortunately, this method is only for free themes available in the WordPress themes directory.

1. From the WordPress dashboard, choose Appearance -> Themes. From the Theme page, you can click Add New.
   
2. After that, choose your favorite theme from the list — Featured, Popular, Latest, and Favourite. Or, you can type on the search bar for specific theme’s name or category.
   
3. Once find a nice theme, feel free to click Install or Preview. Remember that you have to click Activate your theme after installing. Here, I use Isabel as my theme as it would be perfect for the online business I want to build.
4. Again, a few themes will recommend you to install some plugins to make it work perfectly.
   
5. That’s it you have your theme installed. Easy isn’t it?
   

Uploading Your Theme to WordPress

If you find an amazing theme from external sources like ThemeForest or Envato, you need to upload your theme to WordPress.

1. Make sure you download the theme .zip file. Please note that some websites also offer you to get the plugins file as well. Here, I use ShopIsle theme.
2. From the WordPress theme page, choose Upload theme.
   
3. After that, you can choose the downloaded theme file from your directory, and click Install Now.
   
4. Always make sure that you click Activate to make it as your main theme.
   
5. You’ll see that your theme is already active.
   

Using FTP

The third method is bit technical so I will not recommend it unless you feel comfortable doing it.

FTP — stands for File Transfer Protocol — is one of the best methods to transfer files online. While transferring the files, FTP encrypts the content and safeguards your login credentials.

To use this method, make sure you have an FTP client installed — I recommend FileZilla.

1. Make sure you have FTP login information — you can get it from your hosting provider.
2. Fill out the information and click Quickconnect to connect to your server. Once finished you can start to review your content.
3. Go to your WordPress themes folder (/wp/content/themes) and upload your theme — unzip the downloaded file first. Here, I use Excellent theme.
   
4. Once uploaded, simply go to WordPress dashboard -> Appearance -> Themes.
   
5. If you see the uploaded theme, just click Install.
6. Now go to your website homepage to see how it looks.

Conclusion

Installing a WordPress theme is not difficult if you use the right method.

Before installing, you just need to consider a few important things like additional code, the plugin functionality, cross-browser compatibility and loading speed.

The three methods that you can choose based on your preference are:

• Exploring the WordPress Theme Directory
• Uploading Theme Zip Files to WordPress
• Using FTP

Now, you can make your WordPress site nice and functional using the perfect theme!